High Park Superintendent Dr. Scott Taylor has been named the Middlesex County Superintendent of the Year by the New Jersey Association for School Administrators (NJASA). Announced at the April 30th school board meeting, the news means that Dr. Taylor is now in the running to be one of three regional superintendents of the year and, if selected, state superintendent of the year.
According to the Highland Park Board of education, Dr. Taylor’s work in the district continues a long-standing tradition of academic excellence while maintaining a laser focus on equity for the district’s diverse student body.
In each county, a committee of three superintendents chooses a colleague who has been a superintendent for at least five years, has a record of service with the NJASA and who has a distinguished record as an educator.
“I am honored to have been recognized as the 2018 Middlesex County Superintendent of the Year. This honor is more about Highland Park than about any one person,” Dr. Taylor said. “I am only as successful as are the students, parents, staff, fellow leaders and board of education of our beautiful community.”
“Dr. Taylor faced a daunting task when he agreed to become superintendent in Highland Park almost three years ago,” said Darcie Cimarusti, Highland Park Board of Education president. “The district was just beginning to heal after a tumultuous chapter in its history — a chapter that was filled with discord and uncertainty. Dr. Taylor immediately brought community stakeholders together to create a strategic plan, and charted a course for rebuilding the district.”
Central to that work was healing fractured relationships throughout the district in order to move forward collaboratively.
“The tenor has really changed here in Highland Park, and it is nice to be working collaboratively with both our superintendent and the Board of Education,” said Highland Park Education Association President Keith Presty, who spoke on behalf of HPEA. “I look forward to continuing this great partnership.”
According to Highland Park Borough Council Member Matthew Hersh, who also is a trustee in the Highland Park Educational Foundation, “Dr. Taylor has exhibited a rare ability of navigating some very difficult public education policy waters over the last several years while reflecting and working to advance the wants of the board of education and of the public school community; a community that embraces above all else a fair, equitable, nurturing public education environment….. Dr. Taylor is a community leader and, as a resident, has skin in the game and has a reach that runs deep in Highland Park.”